Mac OS X comes with a pretty easy way to type spanish characters without changing the keyboard layout or language. This is how:
This tutorial shows you how to type accents on a Mac keyboard. Holding down the letter. The quickest and easiest way to insert an accent is by holding down the letter you need to accent. For example, if you hold down the letter E on your keyboard, you will see a pop-up appear with the accent options. Typing Spanish Accents. Means re-configuring your system so that it is easy to use your keyboard to create accented characters. To get accents on the Mac.
For vowels with an acute accent just press 'Option' key and the 'E' key at the same time, then release them and press the vowel you want to be accented:
á -> Option + e, a
é -> Option + e, e
í -> Option + e, i
ó -> Option + e, o
ú -> Option + e, u
é -> Option + e, e
í -> Option + e, i
ó -> Option + e, o
ú -> Option + e, u
For capital vowels just press the 'Shift' key before the vowel if you don't have the 'Caps lock' activated:
á -> Option + e, Shift + A
é -> Option + e, Shift + E
í -> Option + e, Shift + I
ó -> Option + e, Shift + O
ú -> Option + e, Shift + U
é -> Option + e, Shift + E
í -> Option + e, Shift + I
ó -> Option + e, Shift + O
ú -> Option + e, Shift + U
For the ñ or Ñ characters the process is very similar:
ñ -> Option + n, N
Ñ -> Option + n, Shift + N
Ñ -> Option + n, Shift + N
And for inverted question and exclamation marks:
¿ -> Shift + Option + ?
¡ -> Option + 1
¡ -> Option + 1